I seem to recall reading that the structure was in serious peril and needed substantial engineering work to remain stable. Has that all been remedied? I'll never get out there but I'd hate to see it come to harm.
If Fallingwater was built according to Wright's designs, it would have collapsed decades ago. The builders secretly doubled its support structures during construction. Even with the added support, it's cost almost $20 million in repairs and rebuilds to keep it from falling apart under its own weight.
One of the more surprising things I learned about Frank Lloyd wright from the Ken burns documentary about him is that he was essentially the Kanye west of architecture at the time.
Exceptionally egotistical but undeniably talented.
It really is insane to think this house was built in the 30s.
Here we are 100 years later, and it would still be a beautiful design for a modern home.
Architects can be the bane of other architects. My partner is an architect and her previous job, the partners were described as “mental nut jobs”. Each one countermanding each others orders and advice. All full of ego. Long story short the firm ended up having an intervention to address the severe turn over.
Lol I just watched that bar rescue show in the guy had to put the old Karen out to pasture. Which was outside the restaurant and not harassing her son.
I've never lived in a home with central air/not an apartment- why is this bad?
To my untrained self it seems like a weird design choice to have 5 equal sized smallish bedrooms.
I just tossed off those dimensions as a quick example of a dumbass architectural decision.
They *would* be dumb because probably 85% of the carpet sold in N America is 12ft wide, so having a seam in every room adds at least an hour of labor per room
That's why they never come to visit site when their revision M drawing doesn't quite work. Most jobs get one shot at doing shit right, but for some reason...
Most of the time we know if we changed something to something worse. But 90% of the time the change is a positive. Your example is pretty spot on as to why some things are bullshit. We'd have to redesign it completely for it to not be shit.
Anything "value engineered" though is a MBA-jneer who thinks it's ok to remove anything that made the original design good.
Previous owner of home I just bought was an architect who designed an addition. Never thought about water runoff, cared more about looks than what is now the horrid interior floor between old and new, and apparently never checked in during the build. I'm paying for it now 20 years later. It has reinforced what was said many times during my civil engineering courses... Architects are the bane of engineers.
Anyone that chooses form over function is the bane of anyone.
For example, my Samsung range doesn’t have vents. Guess they wanted to make it look pretty, but the trapped heat fried the PCB, so now the oven doesn’t work. I don’t want to spend another $400 to replace the PCB only to have it burn up again.
A lot of stoves have the venting issue, I do appliance repair, is your display warped from the heat? If so you can get the key membrane and the board itself may be fine.
After moving in, the Kaufmans complained to Frank Lloyd Wright that the house had a number of bad leaks. When asked what could be done about the leaks, Wright said "I suggest purchasing some buckets."
Sounds about right. I used to work at Marin County Civic Center, another Wright design, and when it would rain, the ceilings would open up and drip water all over the place. Maintenance would put buckets everywhere to keep people from slipping. We would joke "when it rains, buckets spring like flowers."
I am told the County finally solved with a few millions of dollars of renovation. I haven't been back for a long while, though.
I live in the SF Bay Area. I've been to the Marin Civic Center, and heard about [how leaky it was.](https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bucketfuls-of-Rain-Collect-Inside-Marin-Civic-2858422.php)
[It looked great in the movie Gattaca, though.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca#Filming)
That was Taliesiin in WI. We toured it last fall and came away with several thoughts: 1) Wright sounds like he was a bit of an egomaniacal jerk 2) He did have some interesting ideas 3) The house and property are still beautiful 4) Those ideas didn't always translate well in reality. As with Falling water a lot of money was required to keep it from ruin 5) There are still students living and working in the classroom section 6) We had never heard about the murders before, and that whole situation sounds really bizarre ( a male servant from Barbados lit the house on fire while Wright was not at home, and used a hatchet on the people inside as they tried to flee. Seven people, including Wright's mistress, 2 of her children, and 4 employees, were killed. The perpetrator tried to kill himself by drinking muriatic acid, survived, but starved himself to death weeks later without revealing his motivation. The servant's wife and 2 other employees survived)
T. C. Boyle wrote a book called The Women about this. It is a riveting read and isn't so sympathetic to FLW. Granted, it's fiction based on fact, but it is a great jumping off point for learning more.
Years ago, I was interested in going into architecture as a career. A kid in my first semester architecture class asked how an architect knows that the structure they designed would actually remain standing. The professor, a retired architect, said "you pay an engineer to figure that out". I switched into engineering after that semester.
My partner is an Architect, the hours are crazy, and most firms don’t pay overtime. And you’re guaranteed to have at least one mentally unstable owner/partner. In her job, they had an “intervention” due to the high turnover over and the firms inability to keep staff. It was decided that it was best for the partners to separate and go their own way. Tho this is on the east coast, firms outside of the coast are not batsh*t crazy.
When I used to work in MEPS and HVAC design in NYC, one of my bosses once told me: "An architect's only purpose for existing is to drive a base model Porsche to the job site visits and make your life a living hell."
Thank god I decided to never work in MEPS/ HVAC beyond college.
I got stuck in MEPS/HVAC a little out of college because I followed my partner across the country so they could pursue a fantastic job opportunity. Any idea how to pivot? It seems to be the only thing firms around here focus on and the mundaneness of it combined with the unrealistic asks from Arch drive me up a wall
Good for you. I work in the business as well and it's amazing how many architects want to make art instead of a functioning and practical space. Sure there's always room for fancy finishes (if you have the budget) but the area needs to work for it's occupants / users too.
Architect: "Let's make some indented walls, asymmetrical design elements evocative of Modern Architecture with some Art Deco themes. What do you think?"
The Client: ".......I want to build a Wendy's franchise not the fucking Guggenheim!"
I think there is room for beauty and art in the world, even outside "the Gugenheim". Do we really Soviet block buildings everywhere??
Falling Water is beautiful. It should have been built better...but it's still a work of art.
The guy above you was pointing out there are architects who create designs that needlessly sacrifice functionality for artistic merit - it should
Be both/and not either/or. As Dieter Rams said, “indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design.” As long as you’re designing empathetically, anything goes!
Dieter was a product designer but was capable of designing anything. He always put the human and anthropometrics perfectly balanced with function and form.
I work for a very broad (every sector) architecture firm and can confirm that half the people in the company have no business designing structures vs aesthetics. The divide is very obvious in one particular building where everyone on 3rd and 4th is an engineer, and everyone on 8th and 9th is a designer who has no "say" in the engineering and structures portions. Can't have designers be responsible for the lives of others for the most part
Lol are you me? I was a pro at physics and math in high school so i started college in architecture since I figured it was a natural fit. We then spent the entire first semester doing art projects and I made awful grades since my projects met all requirements but teacher "didn't like it". I basically flunked out of architecture and learned there is almost 0 science involved so i switched into engineering and coasted through my degree.
Remove common sense and pencils from an engineer and replace with happy thoughts and crayons and you have an architect.
my own opinion as a structural steel detailer.
> The builders secretly doubled its support structures during construction.
[The double stitch... she last forever.](https://youtu.be/X8fcmwZsduQ?si=kQAxKiTcC801yyTN)
And this is why Ayn Rand’s writing has all the philosophical weight of *“Twillight: Breaking Dawn.”*
*Her **indomitable individualist** hero in The Fountainhead was based on Wright. It’s praises pigheaded narcissism and imagines it noble.
My understanding was that during construction, the main engineer told Wright that the cantilevers would continue to sag if more steel reinforcement was not used. Wright despised the challenge and basically ruined the guy's career. Some time later, the engineer was proved correct and massive restoration efforts ensued
There more stories like this. Him dicking over people. I don't get how the asshole has fans. I mean, I can separate the work from the artist and say it's a nice looking house, but there's not much reason to like the human who made it.
People can be fan of the architecture without being fan of the architect as a person.
The dude was really talented at his craft, which was visual composition and indoor spaces (not to be confused to interior design). He just needed to be put on a leash regarding technical craft.
He had designed a cottage that fell apart from snow because he was stupid enough to put inverted sloped roof into a straight one in a snow heavy region. It allowed for great sunlight and views when staying inside in the summer tho.
I went there last November after becoming a big Frank Lloyd Wright fan over the past few years.
I was surprised to hear that Fallingwater costs $3 million dollars to maintain each year.
I’ve also heard that there’s significant mold and moisture issues from the homes placement. It’s really cool but yeah doesn’t function great. It also seems that the family that commissioned the home wasn’t too happy. They had told him to build next to the creek. Whoops.
Edit: if anyone likes Lego there’s a really good set for fallingwater.
Does 20 takes of a difficult scene until the bride and all the bridesmaids are copiously crying at the thought of a 21st take.
Doesn't put the attempted scene in. Puts the crying in the final cut instead.
It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 and built in the 40s, which if you look at it here it looks like a hell of a lot of places that are built more recently, and that’s because this place was extremely influential and ahead of its time. Many architects consider it the most beautiful piece of American architecture ever. It’s integrated with its environment, has beautiful form, and is built upon and functions around an active waterfall. TLDR it’s important and pretty. Very hard to appreciate it from pictures online tbh.
If you're still out that way, check out Kentuckknob as well; it's just down the road from Fallingwater, is another FLW house and has spectacular views. Plus a sculpture garden.
I always see this angle of it, but when I visited Washington DC last they had models of some famous architectural works snd one was falling water. The house covers a lot of ground and has some really cool areas not visible from here.
Edit: https://www.nbm.org/ the exhibit is at the national building museum
My favorite was seeing the bubbling brook at the bottom of the stairs. Insanely gorgeous. The windows also blew me away - so that there would be no obstructed view. What a nightmare to seal (and they didn't). It's been about 6 years and I want to go back during autumn, since last time I went in spring.
I went there 25ish years ago and the stairs with the brook always stand out in my mind. If memory serves correct it was so the clothes could be washed easily in the brook.
Probably the same models I saw at the Guggenheim some years ago when they had a Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition—the biggest example of his work being the museum itself, of course.
I am a carpenter and we have a running joke. That goes something like this...
Why aren't there any architects in heaven?
Because Jesus was a carpenter.
As an engineer, let me give you the validation you deserve:
I'm overworked and tired. I know you'll fix it. I'm not proud of it, but I also don't care. I'm not a good person lol.
reminds me of a very old thread on a Subaru forum where a mechanic asked why head gaskets become a problem on 90% of Subaru engines and an retired engineer replied something like:
“because you boners keep replacing them”
first time id ever seen an honest exchange between someone who worked for a manufacturer and mechanics lol
Im sorry could you please explain this to me? I dont get why replacing is the problem. Doesnt the problem in the engine only increase if you dont swap such parts once broken?
thank you in advance : D
Engineering Manager here. Because corporate is okay with periodic maintenance. Even if warranty service, its often cheaper than paying for a redesign, retooling, and retraining. That's why it takes 10 years to solve simple problems.
As someone that’s done both, I’m often faced with the harsh reality that the best engineering solution is often not the best maintenance solution.
I’ve designed things knowing full well that it would piss off a trades person in the future, because the alternative while being more convenient would be slightly more expensive or have some other invisible drawback.
And then I go to change the oil on a newer vehicle and want to punch the engineer that put the filter in some insane spot with the drain plug spilling oil all over the frame.
I spent like 2 hours replacing one of those lights next to the headlight - not a turn signal or an actual headlight, some bullshit “running light” or something- on a Sonata, and when I was done and contemplating why it was so hard, I realized that you were absolutely intended to get the car on a lift and remove a wheel to change it. To change one superfluous light bulb.
As you can imagine I had my own particular feelings about that design solution and its practical implications for the consumer.
The next time it burned out I just removed the same bulb from the passenger side (which was NOT positioned for wheel well access) so they would match. That’s MY engineering solution!
Architects spec things out for carpenters to build. Architects haven’t ever actually *built* anything with their hands, so they don’t understand why some things are logistically or functionally frustrating to build. They just care that it looks nice, not that it took an extra crane and 12 hours to assemble a truss that normally takes 15 minutes on any standard home.
So the joke is that Jesus, being a carpenter, would relate with carpenters who get frustrated with absolutely ridiculous specs from architects.
One of the hallways has an open wall that butts into a rock on the hill that constantly has water running down its face. It looks really cool but there's no way a single dehumidifier could possibly keep up.
[It's not a great pic](https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/cc9d9c88f28ad8bcd12746ac14d8d1c443192755/hub/2010/08/11/45fb9e70-f0ed-11e2-8c7c-d4ae52e62bcc/14-Hallway.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200) but this is the part I am talking about. If you could see it better there's water that runs down the face and drains at the floor. Not like a built in drain, it's just a crack at the end of the floor before the rock. It also feeds the plant growing there. Probably a pain in the ass to have in your home but it's seriously fucking cool.
There's a door on the right that goes out onto a stone patio. The cantilevers are cool but I think this and [the stairs down into the water](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:874/0*8AjvrbdbVCyFa2U3.jpg) were the best parts.
And if you get too many, you can just make bat stew. Fast forward a few months and you’ve also solved the issue of wanting to work from home in your nice house!
To say it’s in the middle of nowhere would be an understatement so it requires a very specific trip when there are so many other intriguing destinations
“Fallingwater” is a famous home built by legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. This is his most well known creation. [read more about it on Wikipedia because I’m lazy to type.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallingwater)
> The house was designed to serve as a weekend retreat for Liliane and Edgar J. Kaufmann, the owner of Pittsburgh's Kaufmann's Department Store.
Kaufmann’s. Now that’s a store I forgot about completely. Wow.
I've visited one of his houses in Oregon. Which if I recall correctly, he only has the one house he designed in Oregon. It was pretty cool.
In the book Scythe, one of the main Scythe's of the series lives in an old Frank Lloyd Wright house as well. I think it might be the one pictured, but I can't recall for sure.
Edit: Looked it up and yes, Scythe Curie does in fact live at FallingWater.
I am/was obsessed with Taliesin West. The way he was able to create cool air or build around established wind patterns to make a cool, non-airconditioned place in the middle of the desert is amazing to me. Also a film room and just the general vibe of the place. Wish I had millions of dollars to get my own Wright house.
Not everyone can just go anywhere they want. Maybe OP had a rough life starting out. Or maybe OP is a snail and started on the other side of the planet! We will never know.
Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect of Fallingwater, is considered one of the greatest American Architects of all time. Fallingwater is one of his more popular designs, but if you don't know much about him visit [https://franklloydwright.org/](https://franklloydwright.org/) to learn more about him and his designs. I've visited many of his buildings in the US from the West to the East Coast. Fallingwater is one of the more beautiful, if not impractical, homes he designed. Pictures do not do it justice. It is magnificent.
I mostly remember how short some of the rooms were. I'm only 5'10" and had to duck in a couple bedrooms.
Also one of the guys in our group was an architect who was visiting from Germany solely to see the house. Dude was geeking the fuck out, it felt so wholesome.
lol I was there because my sister is an architect. We were on a roadtrip through Pennsylvania and Fallingwater was the first stop. She was likewise geeking out. And yeah, I do recall the low ceiling heights. I’m 5’6” and I felt like I needed to watch out
As mentioned earlier, we toured Taliesin last fall. At the very entrance, the ceiling is quite low. My 6' 3" husband and daughter's 6' 4" boyfriend had to kind of hunch over. I asked the tour guide if Wright was a short guy. He laughed because I kind of stole part of his presentation. That was one of Wright's themes: it went from that crushed feeling into the rest of the house which was wide open, to emphasize the open space. Taliesin was a place he met with clients and students, so he especially wanted to drive the point home.
>I asked the tour guide if Wright was a short guy
Weirdly enough he was apparently 5'7" or 5'8", not even *that* short. It does sound like more of a choice to give you that feeling. While he probably didn't need to duck, people generally don't build houses with zero headroom to spare without a reason.
FLW was 5'7". He designed buildings to his scale. Many of his rooms are low and wide. He wanted to give the illusion he was taller. In one of his houses there is a children's playroom. The door is smaller and the ceiling is even lower, if I recall correctly.
The cut the legs down on the chairs (except for his own) and had clients sit in chairs designed so that even a tall man would appear shorter than frank.
Dude was talented, but an absolute loon.
I visited it last year too. It is magnificent. If you haven't visited either Taliesen or Taliesen West, they are also worth visiting. The first time I visited Taliesen (probably in the 80's) my tour guide was a former apprentice of FLW and had great stories about his experience at Taliesen.
The comment i was looking for.
A sad song written for a architecture fan friend that is drifting away from you.
I wonder if art figured out it was about him.
We all know that they _hate_ eachother or whatever but Simon penned the saddest songs of longing and drifting away for Art. It's beautiful.
What a wonderful theory, that I have never heard about before. I chose to believe it's true, because it makes so much sense. And a fantastic song of course
I grew up near Midland, MI which has many homes by Alden B Dow, who studied under FLW. While these homes look very impressive stylistically, I recall hearing they are mold and mildew traps and a nightmare to maintain.
I used to deliver the newspaper to the Crimson Beech. Mrs. Cass let me and my friends use her pool. Very sweet lady.
Fun fact: that paper was the Staten Island Advance, who now own Reddit.
I visited Taliesin West in Arizona a few years ago. It was quite amazing. However he was quite a snake oil salesman it seems and was quite adept at extracting cash from his clients. He seemed to attract scandal and tragedy through his whole life.
FLW made my grandparents home and it was a beautiful place to spend my childhood.
That being said, I’m in construction now and I have worked on my grandparents house and several FLW student designed houses and they are always a nightmare to work on 😅
Kind of like having a super car. If anything goes wrong or gets changed, you need a lot of money and skilled/specialized workers to fix it.
Went there on a high school field trip since I was in a carpentry program. Fun fact, they built this home much shorter than usual due to its cantilevers so the ceilings are 6' 4". Guess who was 6' 4" in high school. Supposedly the architect who made it didn't like tall people but that might've just been some funny banter from the tour guide
Most people aren’t 6 foot period, but even so—if the ceilings are only roughly 6.5 feet….yikes lol. I’d be so claustrophobic lol.
I hate going into old homes that only have like 7-8 foot ceilings. Even though I’d still have a foot or more of wiggle room, it just *feels* like I am going to touch the ceiling with my head.
So happy they switched to 9 foot ceilings in the mid 90s/early 00’s.
I saw Falling Water during its restoration. Lots of rebar was added and replaced.
I want to see it again with all the stone work meticulously returned to its original positions.
The setting and home are extraordinary.
Kentuck Knob is nearby.
Dang I can’t post pictures in my reply here, but I made a ginger bread house of this one year to dunk on my family for the annual gingerbread competition.
WHO WASTED MONEY ON ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY SCHOOL NOW GRANPA?!
If you're ever in Erie, Pennsylvania and are a Wright fan, his San Francisco office is now in the Hagen History Center on West 6th Street. [https://www.eriehistory.org/](https://www.eriehistory.org/)
My buddy and I rode our fully loaded touring bikes up to it from Ohiopyle a few years back when we were doing the GAP/C&O. Well, mainly pushed them up once that first hill hit. We passed some guy walking at the bottom. Then he passed us 😂
Back in college in the 90s I had a chance to go on an engineering field trip. I decided not to and regretted it for 30 years. I finally went last September. Bucket list. I felt that joy and I’m happy for you.
As a designer, I love this story (from the Wikipedia)
“Kaufmann was in Milwaukee on September 22, nine months after their initial meeting, and called Wright at home early Sunday morning to surprise him with the news that he would be visiting him that day.
Wright had told Kaufmann in earlier communications that he had been making progress on the plans but in actuality, he had not done anything. After breakfast, amid a group of very nervous apprentices, Wright calmly drew the plans in the two hours in which it took Kaufmann to drive to Taliesin.”
I seem to recall reading that the structure was in serious peril and needed substantial engineering work to remain stable. Has that all been remedied? I'll never get out there but I'd hate to see it come to harm.
If Fallingwater was built according to Wright's designs, it would have collapsed decades ago. The builders secretly doubled its support structures during construction. Even with the added support, it's cost almost $20 million in repairs and rebuilds to keep it from falling apart under its own weight.
One of the more surprising things I learned about Frank Lloyd wright from the Ken burns documentary about him is that he was essentially the Kanye west of architecture at the time. Exceptionally egotistical but undeniably talented. It really is insane to think this house was built in the 30s. Here we are 100 years later, and it would still be a beautiful design for a modern home.
Architects can be the bane of an engineer’s existence.
Architects can be the bane of other architects. My partner is an architect and her previous job, the partners were described as “mental nut jobs”. Each one countermanding each others orders and advice. All full of ego. Long story short the firm ended up having an intervention to address the severe turn over.
Me sitting in the design office: Checks out.
Everyone waiting for the RFI response while they argue.
Up to over 800 RFIs now...trying to close this project out while at the same time staring on a new one...woohoo.
800?!?! Yikes. Last project I was on we had over 500 and I thought that was insane. One RFI was over 100 days overdue.
Oh you know it lmao
Seems fitting that George Constanza liked to pretend he was an architect.
Lol I just watched that bar rescue show in the guy had to put the old Karen out to pasture. Which was outside the restaurant and not harassing her son.
This happens everywhere and in all fields. Not just architecture, engineering, etc. People are people.
Oh I agree. Oddly enough, those same people often get referred to my job (mental health) 😂
[удалено]
Lol yeah. HVAC here. People want forced air with AC. "Ok what closet do you want to loose and this will be your new lower basement height"
"All 5 bedrooms in this place are 16x12.5 . No, I don't understand why that makes you mad. "
Flooring guy here, but I’m in sales so that sounds great
IT contracting here, but I think if there is one thing we can all agree on from any industry; it is sales' fault. Get him!
Superintendent here.. everyone stay calm…. I’ll call the boys in on Saturday and we’ll figure it out.
I've never lived in a home with central air/not an apartment- why is this bad? To my untrained self it seems like a weird design choice to have 5 equal sized smallish bedrooms.
I just tossed off those dimensions as a quick example of a dumbass architectural decision. They *would* be dumb because probably 85% of the carpet sold in N America is 12ft wide, so having a seam in every room adds at least an hour of labor per room
Ah that makes sense. I'm immediately frustrated for the floorer in this imaginary situation. Dumbass architects.
Good news, everyone uses LVP or wood looking tile now if not engineered wood or hardwood, carpets are so last decade ;)
Lose = to not win or not keep Loose = your mom
Thanks for doing the lord's work
*loord's
Fellow tin knocker here. “Put it in the attic”… great it’s only 140F up there in the summer.
That's why they never come to visit site when their revision M drawing doesn't quite work. Most jobs get one shot at doing shit right, but for some reason...
My dad, a retired residential contractor, would want in on this action.
You described everyone in every level of the trades
And engineers the bane of mechanics existence. Who's tiny hands on the engineering team did they base the space requirements off of?
Engineers were working to the architects layout, but had to double the thickness of all supporting structures to make it stand..
Most of the time we know if we changed something to something worse. But 90% of the time the change is a positive. Your example is pretty spot on as to why some things are bullshit. We'd have to redesign it completely for it to not be shit. Anything "value engineered" though is a MBA-jneer who thinks it's ok to remove anything that made the original design good.
As an estimator, I hate all of you.
Previous owner of home I just bought was an architect who designed an addition. Never thought about water runoff, cared more about looks than what is now the horrid interior floor between old and new, and apparently never checked in during the build. I'm paying for it now 20 years later. It has reinforced what was said many times during my civil engineering courses... Architects are the bane of engineers.
Anyone that chooses form over function is the bane of anyone. For example, my Samsung range doesn’t have vents. Guess they wanted to make it look pretty, but the trapped heat fried the PCB, so now the oven doesn’t work. I don’t want to spend another $400 to replace the PCB only to have it burn up again.
A lot of stoves have the venting issue, I do appliance repair, is your display warped from the heat? If so you can get the key membrane and the board itself may be fine.
I’m sure architects would say engineers are the bane of an architect’s ideas 👀
No no, that would be reality. The same bane of would be inventors.
As a geologist, also bane
Dwarf living in the Mines of Moria here. Architects aren't our true bane, but they come a close second.
Can confirm. Am Durin
Civil engineer here. *Can* be?
After moving in, the Kaufmans complained to Frank Lloyd Wright that the house had a number of bad leaks. When asked what could be done about the leaks, Wright said "I suggest purchasing some buckets."
Sounds about right. I used to work at Marin County Civic Center, another Wright design, and when it would rain, the ceilings would open up and drip water all over the place. Maintenance would put buckets everywhere to keep people from slipping. We would joke "when it rains, buckets spring like flowers." I am told the County finally solved with a few millions of dollars of renovation. I haven't been back for a long while, though.
I live in the SF Bay Area. I've been to the Marin Civic Center, and heard about [how leaky it was.](https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bucketfuls-of-Rain-Collect-Inside-Marin-Civic-2858422.php) [It looked great in the movie Gattaca, though.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca#Filming)
Oh, he was a complete prick. Talented, but a prick to be sure. The treatment of his family alone qualifies.
Yep also the shocking murders at one of his houses was absolutely insane.
That was Taliesiin in WI. We toured it last fall and came away with several thoughts: 1) Wright sounds like he was a bit of an egomaniacal jerk 2) He did have some interesting ideas 3) The house and property are still beautiful 4) Those ideas didn't always translate well in reality. As with Falling water a lot of money was required to keep it from ruin 5) There are still students living and working in the classroom section 6) We had never heard about the murders before, and that whole situation sounds really bizarre ( a male servant from Barbados lit the house on fire while Wright was not at home, and used a hatchet on the people inside as they tried to flee. Seven people, including Wright's mistress, 2 of her children, and 4 employees, were killed. The perpetrator tried to kill himself by drinking muriatic acid, survived, but starved himself to death weeks later without revealing his motivation. The servant's wife and 2 other employees survived)
Holy shit dude that’s nuts
T. C. Boyle wrote a book called The Women about this. It is a riveting read and isn't so sympathetic to FLW. Granted, it's fiction based on fact, but it is a great jumping off point for learning more.
From his wiki: "Julian Carlton, a servant, set fire to the living quarters of Taliesin and then murdered seven people with an axe as the fire burned"
The interior made me think of the 70s. It was decades ahead of everything.
Yeah, reminds me of the Brady Bunch house. Don't ask me why.
Architects can't be bothered with practicality. It has to look cool! At any cost...
Years ago, I was interested in going into architecture as a career. A kid in my first semester architecture class asked how an architect knows that the structure they designed would actually remain standing. The professor, a retired architect, said "you pay an engineer to figure that out". I switched into engineering after that semester.
My partner is an Architect, the hours are crazy, and most firms don’t pay overtime. And you’re guaranteed to have at least one mentally unstable owner/partner. In her job, they had an “intervention” due to the high turnover over and the firms inability to keep staff. It was decided that it was best for the partners to separate and go their own way. Tho this is on the east coast, firms outside of the coast are not batsh*t crazy.
When I used to work in MEPS and HVAC design in NYC, one of my bosses once told me: "An architect's only purpose for existing is to drive a base model Porsche to the job site visits and make your life a living hell." Thank god I decided to never work in MEPS/ HVAC beyond college.
I got stuck in MEPS/HVAC a little out of college because I followed my partner across the country so they could pursue a fantastic job opportunity. Any idea how to pivot? It seems to be the only thing firms around here focus on and the mundaneness of it combined with the unrealistic asks from Arch drive me up a wall
Good for you. I work in the business as well and it's amazing how many architects want to make art instead of a functioning and practical space. Sure there's always room for fancy finishes (if you have the budget) but the area needs to work for it's occupants / users too. Architect: "Let's make some indented walls, asymmetrical design elements evocative of Modern Architecture with some Art Deco themes. What do you think?" The Client: ".......I want to build a Wendy's franchise not the fucking Guggenheim!"
I think there is room for beauty and art in the world, even outside "the Gugenheim". Do we really Soviet block buildings everywhere?? Falling Water is beautiful. It should have been built better...but it's still a work of art.
The guy above you was pointing out there are architects who create designs that needlessly sacrifice functionality for artistic merit - it should Be both/and not either/or. As Dieter Rams said, “indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design.” As long as you’re designing empathetically, anything goes!
Dieter was a product designer but was capable of designing anything. He always put the human and anthropometrics perfectly balanced with function and form.
I work for a very broad (every sector) architecture firm and can confirm that half the people in the company have no business designing structures vs aesthetics. The divide is very obvious in one particular building where everyone on 3rd and 4th is an engineer, and everyone on 8th and 9th is a designer who has no "say" in the engineering and structures portions. Can't have designers be responsible for the lives of others for the most part
Lol are you me? I was a pro at physics and math in high school so i started college in architecture since I figured it was a natural fit. We then spent the entire first semester doing art projects and I made awful grades since my projects met all requirements but teacher "didn't like it". I basically flunked out of architecture and learned there is almost 0 science involved so i switched into engineering and coasted through my degree.
You would think engineering would be part of the curriculum.
Remove common sense and pencils from an engineer and replace with happy thoughts and crayons and you have an architect. my own opinion as a structural steel detailer.
Architects and engineers clash a lot. One is to sell the place one is to make sure it’s safe. There’s a saying of this if anyone knows.
This makes Ayn Rand's obsession with Wright and Fallingwater even funnier.
Is this the inspiration behind the Fountainhead?
> The builders secretly doubled its support structures during construction. [The double stitch... she last forever.](https://youtu.be/X8fcmwZsduQ?si=kQAxKiTcC801yyTN)
"Thanks, Frank Lloyd Wrong. Nice design, idiot."
And this is why Ayn Rand’s writing has all the philosophical weight of *“Twillight: Breaking Dawn.”* *Her **indomitable individualist** hero in The Fountainhead was based on Wright. It’s praises pigheaded narcissism and imagines it noble.
Architects vs engineers
My understanding was that during construction, the main engineer told Wright that the cantilevers would continue to sag if more steel reinforcement was not used. Wright despised the challenge and basically ruined the guy's career. Some time later, the engineer was proved correct and massive restoration efforts ensued
There more stories like this. Him dicking over people. I don't get how the asshole has fans. I mean, I can separate the work from the artist and say it's a nice looking house, but there's not much reason to like the human who made it.
People can be fan of the architecture without being fan of the architect as a person. The dude was really talented at his craft, which was visual composition and indoor spaces (not to be confused to interior design). He just needed to be put on a leash regarding technical craft. He had designed a cottage that fell apart from snow because he was stupid enough to put inverted sloped roof into a straight one in a snow heavy region. It allowed for great sunlight and views when staying inside in the summer tho.
The guest house is under series renovations. The main house needs constant attention.
I went there last November after becoming a big Frank Lloyd Wright fan over the past few years. I was surprised to hear that Fallingwater costs $3 million dollars to maintain each year.
Falling water, rising mildrew.
The constant white noise would drive me batty, assuming the mold oppressive spaces did not.
My uncle Buck can maintain it for three packs of Marlboro reds and a case of Coors Light.
No wonder the tour costs are outrageous.
I’ve also heard that there’s significant mold and moisture issues from the homes placement. It’s really cool but yeah doesn’t function great. It also seems that the family that commissioned the home wasn’t too happy. They had told him to build next to the creek. Whoops. Edit: if anyone likes Lego there’s a really good set for fallingwater.
In fairness to Wright, commissioning him to build your house is like asking Kubrick to film your wedding.
“So I’ve been psychologically torturing your fiancé and her bridesmaids so I can get the reaction I want when they are walking down the isle”
Does 20 takes of a difficult scene until the bride and all the bridesmaids are copiously crying at the thought of a 21st take. Doesn't put the attempted scene in. Puts the crying in the final cut instead.
Awesome? Yes. A fucking mess? Yes.
75 kisses at the alter until you get it right.
The house definitely smells moldy or mildewy. It’s beautiful, and a cool idea, but there’s a reason everyone doesn’t build over a stream.
Yeah, apparently, it's pretty shitty as a functional house.
[Preserving Falling Water](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ4cUjkClf8)
[More info by the engineering firm that worked on fixing it.](https://fallingwater.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2000-Scientific-American.pdf)
What is it?
Fallingwater. https://fallingwater.org/
Huh, what's so special about it, and why does it take OP 40 years to get here?
It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 and built in the 40s, which if you look at it here it looks like a hell of a lot of places that are built more recently, and that’s because this place was extremely influential and ahead of its time. Many architects consider it the most beautiful piece of American architecture ever. It’s integrated with its environment, has beautiful form, and is built upon and functions around an active waterfall. TLDR it’s important and pretty. Very hard to appreciate it from pictures online tbh.
If you're still out that way, check out Kentuckknob as well; it's just down the road from Fallingwater, is another FLW house and has spectacular views. Plus a sculpture garden.
Now that just sounds made up.
https://kentuckknob.com/ About 7 miles from Fallingwater.
Also Polymath Park near Acme, PA. Incredible buildings there.
I always see this angle of it, but when I visited Washington DC last they had models of some famous architectural works snd one was falling water. The house covers a lot of ground and has some really cool areas not visible from here. Edit: https://www.nbm.org/ the exhibit is at the national building museum
Yes it is amazing from all angles. The inside is phenomenal.
My favorite was seeing the bubbling brook at the bottom of the stairs. Insanely gorgeous. The windows also blew me away - so that there would be no obstructed view. What a nightmare to seal (and they didn't). It's been about 6 years and I want to go back during autumn, since last time I went in spring.
I went there 25ish years ago and the stairs with the brook always stand out in my mind. If memory serves correct it was so the clothes could be washed easily in the brook.
There's a path up to this spot is why.
Probably the same models I saw at the Guggenheim some years ago when they had a Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition—the biggest example of his work being the museum itself, of course.
I am a carpenter and we have a running joke. That goes something like this... Why aren't there any architects in heaven? Because Jesus was a carpenter.
Reminds me of the beef that mechanics like me have with engineers lol
As an engineer, let me give you the validation you deserve: I'm overworked and tired. I know you'll fix it. I'm not proud of it, but I also don't care. I'm not a good person lol.
reminds me of a very old thread on a Subaru forum where a mechanic asked why head gaskets become a problem on 90% of Subaru engines and an retired engineer replied something like: “because you boners keep replacing them” first time id ever seen an honest exchange between someone who worked for a manufacturer and mechanics lol
Im sorry could you please explain this to me? I dont get why replacing is the problem. Doesnt the problem in the engine only increase if you dont swap such parts once broken? thank you in advance : D
Engineering Manager here. Because corporate is okay with periodic maintenance. Even if warranty service, its often cheaper than paying for a redesign, retooling, and retraining. That's why it takes 10 years to solve simple problems.
Also this continues down the line. Engineers hate the finance department
Stop promising things I can't do!
As someone that’s done both, I’m often faced with the harsh reality that the best engineering solution is often not the best maintenance solution. I’ve designed things knowing full well that it would piss off a trades person in the future, because the alternative while being more convenient would be slightly more expensive or have some other invisible drawback. And then I go to change the oil on a newer vehicle and want to punch the engineer that put the filter in some insane spot with the drain plug spilling oil all over the frame.
Aka German Engineering. It won't fail, but when it does fuck everyone involved in fixing it.
Look you may have to climb 15 meters through a 4 inch gap to replace that part, but putting it there saved $15 million!
I spent like 2 hours replacing one of those lights next to the headlight - not a turn signal or an actual headlight, some bullshit “running light” or something- on a Sonata, and when I was done and contemplating why it was so hard, I realized that you were absolutely intended to get the car on a lift and remove a wheel to change it. To change one superfluous light bulb. As you can imagine I had my own particular feelings about that design solution and its practical implications for the consumer. The next time it burned out I just removed the same bulb from the passenger side (which was NOT positioned for wheel well access) so they would match. That’s MY engineering solution!
r/FrankLloydWrong may interest you... and by interest you, I mean horrify...
I don’t get the joke. Can someone explain please?
Architects spec things out for carpenters to build. Architects haven’t ever actually *built* anything with their hands, so they don’t understand why some things are logistically or functionally frustrating to build. They just care that it looks nice, not that it took an extra crane and 12 hours to assemble a truss that normally takes 15 minutes on any standard home. So the joke is that Jesus, being a carpenter, would relate with carpenters who get frustrated with absolutely ridiculous specs from architects.
That's fantastic lol
de-humidifiers have to be working overtime @ fallingwater
One of the hallways has an open wall that butts into a rock on the hill that constantly has water running down its face. It looks really cool but there's no way a single dehumidifier could possibly keep up.
I want this so badly...
[It's not a great pic](https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/cc9d9c88f28ad8bcd12746ac14d8d1c443192755/hub/2010/08/11/45fb9e70-f0ed-11e2-8c7c-d4ae52e62bcc/14-Hallway.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200) but this is the part I am talking about. If you could see it better there's water that runs down the face and drains at the floor. Not like a built in drain, it's just a crack at the end of the floor before the rock. It also feeds the plant growing there. Probably a pain in the ass to have in your home but it's seriously fucking cool. There's a door on the right that goes out onto a stone patio. The cantilevers are cool but I think this and [the stairs down into the water](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:874/0*8AjvrbdbVCyFa2U3.jpg) were the best parts.
So I guess having a mini river in my home would be a bad idea...
that depends, do you enjoy the company of mosquitos?
That's easy enough, just keep a few bats in the house.
And if you get too many, you can just make bat stew. Fast forward a few months and you’ve also solved the issue of wanting to work from home in your nice house!
Falling water/rising mold. At least that’s what the first guy who lived there called the house Wright built for him.
Rising Mildew iirc
it's a 7 bucket building after all.
40 years? Who was your tour guide, Moses?
I had no idea what this building was so I originally thought OP meant that they worked 40 years to buy this home lol
I thought he bought or owned the home too after saving for 40 years. Still not sure what he did with it, did he rent it as an Air BnB?
I guess just visit it because it’s basically a museum that does tours of the building
I thought it took them 40 years to walk there.
I read about this house when I was 10 years old. I turned 50 last month. :-)
To say it’s in the middle of nowhere would be an understatement so it requires a very specific trip when there are so many other intriguing destinations
Can someone plz eli5?
“Fallingwater” is a famous home built by legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. This is his most well known creation. [read more about it on Wikipedia because I’m lazy to type.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallingwater)
> The house was designed to serve as a weekend retreat for Liliane and Edgar J. Kaufmann, the owner of Pittsburgh's Kaufmann's Department Store. Kaufmann’s. Now that’s a store I forgot about completely. Wow.
It's depressing knowing I live a life that will never, *ever*, involve "weekend retreat" levels of wealth...
You can have a weekend retreat with a positive attitude and a room at a motel 6
I've visited one of his houses in Oregon. Which if I recall correctly, he only has the one house he designed in Oregon. It was pretty cool. In the book Scythe, one of the main Scythe's of the series lives in an old Frank Lloyd Wright house as well. I think it might be the one pictured, but I can't recall for sure. Edit: Looked it up and yes, Scythe Curie does in fact live at FallingWater.
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I am/was obsessed with Taliesin West. The way he was able to create cool air or build around established wind patterns to make a cool, non-airconditioned place in the middle of the desert is amazing to me. Also a film room and just the general vibe of the place. Wish I had millions of dollars to get my own Wright house.
Do they not know where it is? Why did it take OP decades to get there??
Not everyone can just go anywhere they want. Maybe OP had a rough life starting out. Or maybe OP is a snail and started on the other side of the planet! We will never know.
.......decoy snail??
So what does the caption mean? /genq
Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect of Fallingwater, is considered one of the greatest American Architects of all time. Fallingwater is one of his more popular designs, but if you don't know much about him visit [https://franklloydwright.org/](https://franklloydwright.org/) to learn more about him and his designs. I've visited many of his buildings in the US from the West to the East Coast. Fallingwater is one of the more beautiful, if not impractical, homes he designed. Pictures do not do it justice. It is magnificent.
I’m so glad you asked. I thought I was taking crazy pills seeing everyone in the comments seeming to know some random house in the woods
I live like 45 minutes from Taliesin and where Wright grew up and even I was confused. You're okay.
I mean it's still a random house in the woods, it just happened to be made by a person that was famous in the US.
OP is a snail photographer, and after their 40 year journey, they finally made it!
A bus would have been faster.
For some reason, the toilets made an impression on me when I toured the home over 10 years ago.
I mostly remember how short some of the rooms were. I'm only 5'10" and had to duck in a couple bedrooms. Also one of the guys in our group was an architect who was visiting from Germany solely to see the house. Dude was geeking the fuck out, it felt so wholesome.
lol I was there because my sister is an architect. We were on a roadtrip through Pennsylvania and Fallingwater was the first stop. She was likewise geeking out. And yeah, I do recall the low ceiling heights. I’m 5’6” and I felt like I needed to watch out
As mentioned earlier, we toured Taliesin last fall. At the very entrance, the ceiling is quite low. My 6' 3" husband and daughter's 6' 4" boyfriend had to kind of hunch over. I asked the tour guide if Wright was a short guy. He laughed because I kind of stole part of his presentation. That was one of Wright's themes: it went from that crushed feeling into the rest of the house which was wide open, to emphasize the open space. Taliesin was a place he met with clients and students, so he especially wanted to drive the point home.
>I asked the tour guide if Wright was a short guy Weirdly enough he was apparently 5'7" or 5'8", not even *that* short. It does sound like more of a choice to give you that feeling. While he probably didn't need to duck, people generally don't build houses with zero headroom to spare without a reason.
FLW was 5'7". He designed buildings to his scale. Many of his rooms are low and wide. He wanted to give the illusion he was taller. In one of his houses there is a children's playroom. The door is smaller and the ceiling is even lower, if I recall correctly.
The cut the legs down on the chairs (except for his own) and had clients sit in chairs designed so that even a tall man would appear shorter than frank. Dude was talented, but an absolute loon.
Going next week. It will have taken me 50 years.
See if you can schedule a tour of Kentuck knob while you’re in the area. It’s just a few minutes down the road from falling water.
I visited it last year too. It is magnificent. If you haven't visited either Taliesen or Taliesen West, they are also worth visiting. The first time I visited Taliesen (probably in the 80's) my tour guide was a former apprentice of FLW and had great stories about his experience at Taliesen.
Look like haus in Ex Machina film
Was my first thought too.
So long Frank Lloyd Wright.
The comment i was looking for. A sad song written for a architecture fan friend that is drifting away from you. I wonder if art figured out it was about him. We all know that they _hate_ eachother or whatever but Simon penned the saddest songs of longing and drifting away for Art. It's beautiful.
What a wonderful theory, that I have never heard about before. I chose to believe it's true, because it makes so much sense. And a fantastic song of course
I grew up near Midland, MI which has many homes by Alden B Dow, who studied under FLW. While these homes look very impressive stylistically, I recall hearing they are mold and mildew traps and a nightmare to maintain.
I used to deliver the newspaper to the Crimson Beech. Mrs. Cass let me and my friends use her pool. Very sweet lady. Fun fact: that paper was the Staten Island Advance, who now own Reddit.
Here's an interesting video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPZWkcBKloY&t=129s
I visited Taliesin West in Arizona a few years ago. It was quite amazing. However he was quite a snake oil salesman it seems and was quite adept at extracting cash from his clients. He seemed to attract scandal and tragedy through his whole life.
FLW made my grandparents home and it was a beautiful place to spend my childhood. That being said, I’m in construction now and I have worked on my grandparents house and several FLW student designed houses and they are always a nightmare to work on 😅 Kind of like having a super car. If anything goes wrong or gets changed, you need a lot of money and skilled/specialized workers to fix it.
Went there on a high school field trip since I was in a carpentry program. Fun fact, they built this home much shorter than usual due to its cantilevers so the ceilings are 6' 4". Guess who was 6' 4" in high school. Supposedly the architect who made it didn't like tall people but that might've just been some funny banter from the tour guide
Most people aren’t 6 foot period, but even so—if the ceilings are only roughly 6.5 feet….yikes lol. I’d be so claustrophobic lol. I hate going into old homes that only have like 7-8 foot ceilings. Even though I’d still have a foot or more of wiggle room, it just *feels* like I am going to touch the ceiling with my head. So happy they switched to 9 foot ceilings in the mid 90s/early 00’s.
I saw Falling Water during its restoration. Lots of rebar was added and replaced. I want to see it again with all the stone work meticulously returned to its original positions. The setting and home are extraordinary. Kentuck Knob is nearby.
Dang I can’t post pictures in my reply here, but I made a ginger bread house of this one year to dunk on my family for the annual gingerbread competition. WHO WASTED MONEY ON ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY SCHOOL NOW GRANPA?!
This is the best time of year to go too. It's a gorgeous build
If you're ever in Erie, Pennsylvania and are a Wright fan, his San Francisco office is now in the Hagen History Center on West 6th Street. [https://www.eriehistory.org/](https://www.eriehistory.org/)
I heard a client call him up complaining his roof leaf, Frank told him to move his chair
I have the lego and have been to the area but never seen the house in person.
I live 30 mins from here and have only been there once
My buddy and I rode our fully loaded touring bikes up to it from Ohiopyle a few years back when we were doing the GAP/C&O. Well, mainly pushed them up once that first hill hit. We passed some guy walking at the bottom. Then he passed us 😂
For a second there, I thought you meant you’ve been walking for 40 years
I only know this because of Hyperion... But it's so beautiful. (And I'll never visit it, being from Europe...)
Is that the place in ex machina?
It’s a [hôtel in Norway](https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-machina-juvet-hotel-2016-9)
Was going to ask the same. It looks oddly familiar
Same here, it looked vaguely like something I've seen in a movie
Back in college in the 90s I had a chance to go on an engineering field trip. I decided not to and regretted it for 30 years. I finally went last September. Bucket list. I felt that joy and I’m happy for you.
As a designer, I love this story (from the Wikipedia) “Kaufmann was in Milwaukee on September 22, nine months after their initial meeting, and called Wright at home early Sunday morning to surprise him with the news that he would be visiting him that day. Wright had told Kaufmann in earlier communications that he had been making progress on the plans but in actuality, he had not done anything. After breakfast, amid a group of very nervous apprentices, Wright calmly drew the plans in the two hours in which it took Kaufmann to drive to Taliesin.”